I got to see two cardiac caths back to back today. The first one was on a 77 y/o male who had a already had a graft and two stents put in. He had another heart attack and looking at the xrays after it was not hard to see why. His stents had completely closed up because apparently the blockages were not bad enough to reroute the blood through the stents. He had 80% blockage in a number of places and only 25% EF. Unfortunately, because of his age and condition they will not operate but just treat him with medical therapy and hope for the best.
The second patient was a 65y/o women who's heart only had one small blackage that was <40% blockage. The doctor said that she had that same blockage 2 years ago and it had no changed and was not significant enough for intervention and therefore would continue with current medical therapy.
It was really interesting to be able to see the difference between what a healthy heart and failing heart look like.